A Penn team describes how a key cell-movement protein called IRSp53 is regulated in a resting and active state, and what this means for cancer-cell metastasis. They characterized how IRSp53 connects to the cell-motility machinery ...

Female mosquitoes, which can transmit deadly diseases like malaria, dengue fever, West Nile virus and filariasis, are attracted to us by smelling the carbon dioxide we exhale, being capable of tracking us down even from a ...

A multi-disciplinary team from the University of Pennsylvania have published in Nature Methods a first-of-its-kind way to isolate RNA from live cells in their natural tissue microenvironment without damaging nearby cells. ...

Researchers at the University of Milan in Italy have shown that a synthetic protein called AGMA1 has the potential to promote the adhesion of brain cells in a laboratory setting. This could prove helpful in improving cell ...

An international team of scientists led by Gregg Adams at the University of Saskatchewan has discovered that a protein in semen acts on the female brain to prompt ovulation, and is the same molecule that regulates the growth, ...

Protein synthesis in the extensions of nerve cells, called dendrites, underlies long-term memory formation in the brain, among other functions. "Thousands of messenger RNAs reside in dendrites, yet the dynamics of how multiple ...

A healthy ear is much better at detecting and transmitting sound than even the most advanced hearing aid. But now researchers reporting in the August 20 issue of the Biophysical Journal, a Cell Press publication, have uncovered ...

(Phys.org) -- In the eye, the retina is the light sensitive tissue that lines its inner surface; packed with ganglion neurons, its job is to convert incoming information to something that the brain can understand. In some ...

Neuron

A neuron (pronounced /ˈnjʊərɒn/ N(Y)OOR-on, also known as a neurone or nerve cell) is an excitable cell in the nervous system that processes and transmits information by electrochemical signalling. Neurons are the core components of the brain, the vertebrate spinal cord, the invertebrate ventral nerve cord, and the peripheral nerves. A number of specialized types of neurons exist: sensory neurons respond to touch, sound, light and numerous other stimuli affecting cells of the sensory organs that then send signals to the spinal cord and brain. Motor neurons receive signals from the brain and spinal cord and cause muscle contractions and affect glands. Interneurons connect neurons to other neurons within the same region of the brain or spinal cord. Neurons respond to stimuli, and communicate the presence of stimuli to the central nervous system, which processes that information and sends responses to other parts of the body for action. Neurons do not go through mitosis, and usually cannot be replaced after being destroyed, although astrocytes have been observed to turn into neurons as they are sometimes pluripotent.